Patent medicines

Dr James’s Fever Powder

Dr Robert James (1703-1776) was an uncouth, hard-drinking, verbose buddy of Samuel Johnson – but amid the carousing and lexicography, he found time to create one of the most prominent patent medicines of Georgian England.

Owbridge’s Lung Tonic

Hull chemist Walter Tom Owbridge made his fortune from a sweet-tasting Lung Tonic for coughs.

Dr Buckland’s Scotch Oats Essence

The Scotch Oats Essence was wholesome-sounding American patent medicine – but its short reign of advertising prominence ended when analysis showed it to be a dangerous and cruel fraud.

A Fortune Built on Sand: Health Grains

In early 20th-century New York, a mailman introduced a new patent medicine for indigestion – but the ingredients were far from beneficial.

Dangerous beauty: Madame Anna Ruppert

Anna Ruppert’s career as a beauty specialist brought her acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic, but there was a deadly secret to her success.

Victorian asthma cigarettes: who was Dr Batty?

Some 19thC doctors saw smoking as an efficient way to deliver medication to the lungs – but the popular ‘Dr Batty’ advertisement isn’t real.

Sanitized Tape Worms - a spurious 'vintage' ad

‘Eat! Eat! Eat!’ Those notorious tapeworm diet pills

The tapeworm diet claims a long history, but did our great-grandmothers really fight weight gain with parasites? We look at the evidence.

Avoiding the trickcyclist and nutpicker: First World War home remedies and miracle cures

Suzie Grogan, author of ‘Shell Shocked Britain: The First World War’s Legacy for Britain’s Mental Health’ explores the commercial remedies that claimed to tackle the psychological effects of war.

A devil of a cure: the Sa-Tan-Ic Tonic Laxative

A company in early 20th-century Kansas named their constipation medicine after an unlikely figure – Satan.

Mademoiselle Cavania: England’s ‘only female doctor’?

Roger Cavania Sanders tells us more about his ancestor Mademoiselle Esther Cavania, who sold ‘Cavania’s Wonder-Worker Lotion’ in 1870s England.